An Open View

This is the first of a few related posts on the subject of the importance of controlling and constraining your AWS account resource creation abilities particularly in terms of IAM accounts.

A recent lesson learned caused us to research the area of unexpected resource usage in an AWS account. Trying out the AWS Batch service inadvertently resulted in the launch of an EC2 c4.large instance which ran for a day before we noticed that it was running. This was a surprise because the launch was not explicit, nor was the instance tagged with a descriptive name. After terminating the instance we realized that with this particular account only a limited set of instance types should ever be run and the AWS Config service can be used to detect things outside of normal operational expectations.

AWS Config can be set up using rules that are evaluated and a report generated for anything that fails the rule checks. In this case a rule was created listing the 3 instance types that would be expected to be found for this account. When the Config rules are checked any instance not falling in that list will be reported as non compliant. Note that this service does not prevent the launch of out of norm types but only reports on them so you have to take the action to correct the issue. A subsequent post will cover how IAM policies can be used to prevent a launch in the first place.

Are you looking at embracing a DevOps culture in your organization? Are you interested in achieving "One Feature Flow" and realizing the vision of "The Responsive Cloud"? Would you like to learn Docker containers can help accelerate your application development cycles? Then you should be sure to check out the OpenShift 3 Roadshow as it lands in a city near you.

Today’s businesses move at a breakneck speed, and IT departments across the globe are under great pressure when it comes to delivering new technology. Organizations are responding by upgrading and modernizing their IT solutions to adapt to the current pace, scale, and economic climate amidst the fear of being destroyed by the competition. Hybrid cloud services and automation technologies are the new salvoes in any IT-enabled business. As these new tools become core components, the risk of siloing critical information is making it harder to implement a cloud solution that is in alignment with the business and that responds to its demands.

After already writing a blog post on installing ghost on Amazon EC2, found here: Installing Ghost on EC2, I found that there is a much easier way now if your running the Amazon Linux image on EC2. Below, is the directions on how to do this.

Yet, transcoding the video is only part of the solution for improving the user experience. Another part is to have the file being streamed to the user's device be as geographically close to them as possible so as to reduce latency issues.

For video it is not unusual that there is a need to tailor the stream for the device that is consuming it. The form factor, display size, and the bandwidth available for communicating with the device are all constraints that impact the user experience when viewing video. Providing video media that accommodates the display device or user selected preference will lead to an improved experience for the user.

One common point of contention that we see often in cloud conversions is the uncomfortable squirming that comes from talking about DHCP in the datacenter. This conversation comes up all the time, and is often brought up after the need for automation is well understood and even desired.

Docker, in case you weren't aware, is a toolset for setting up, orchestrating and breaking down containers under Linux. (Other systems as well, but just Linux for now).

"What is a container?" -- you might then ask. A container is a set of processes which have been isolated together by the Linux kernel. The exact technologies are covered here, but the basic idea is that you can make a container, move it around, and replicate it. You can start it up, and shut it down, and toss it out when you're done. You can share it with your workmates, and publish it to the world.

This blog post is about two technologies that we here at Vizuri are particularly fond of: AppDynamics and OpenShift. As a solutions engineer I frequently work with both of these technologies, and I'm excited to tell you about how to you can use them together.

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An Open View

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